Productising a service.

[Daniel Hatton]

Hi everyone,

So I'm thinking about productising my service and just wanted to get some feedback.

I run a video production service and usually give quotes depending on the project but I'm wondering if I could potentially bring in more work by just having a set price. So for example, £400/day filming and £250/day editing.

As a business, would you prefer to have a price already laid out for you as opposed to getting in touch and asking for a quote?

Thanks in advance,

Dan

 

[ethical PR]

Who do you see as the target audience for your service. Are they price sensitive?

What do your competitors do?

Giving me a daily rate isn't giving me a price, it's just letting me know what your daily rate.

 

[Low Cost Sourcing]

It is a hard one because every project will be different and therefore the prices will be different. As said above it depends on your target audience and your competitors.

Do that research and see what is the best option.

Because of that it may be an idea to show both example prices and also the option for a quote. You could show an example where something similar to Project X will take 2 days and cost £X and project Y will take 5 days and cost £X.

I think you will always have to offering a quote just because of the business model.

 

[db_smarter]

Hi Dan

A lot of business owners want to know what they are going to get and for what price - particularly where they don't quite know the ins and outs of what it is they in fact need.

Marketplaces for fixed price, fixed scope services are growing massively which I think is a testament to that fact.

If you can lay your packages out to say: "This is what you'll get", "This is how the process looks" and "This is how much it'll cost", then you'll likely attract more business, as you're not only providing a ceiling cost, but also advising the business owner as to what it is they'll actually need to get what it is they want. I would be apprehensive of paying you £650 for filming and editing because I don't know if that's everything I need to do what I want. I might not even know what I want, but I might have heard that video is a good thing to have on a website, for example.

It also gives you the ability to refine your processes, and get the job done in the most time-efficient way as possible; even if that's a matter of improving your on-boarding questionnaire, and information-gathering.

One thing I will say is that pricing can easily change. You might find that you're short-changing yourself, in which case you can re-evaluate as to whether you can save costs (refine processes further, outsource lower skilled tasks), or if you simply have shown there's enough demand and you can nudge the prices up, generally at the click of a button.

@Low Cost Sourcing makes a good point about giving examples, and this could be something you can do too.

Doug

 

[The Byre]

The problem with many services, is the level of awareness by the customer. Media services and website building are very susceptible to this problem.

When booking a TV studio, a PA system, a recording studio or a web design, the outsider has no idea what is involved and all too often creates problems for themselves and therefore, for the service provider. They also have a total misconception of which steps are involved and what they have to bring to the party. If you provide one price for a service, they all too often, expect all kinds of magic for that price.

These are the very annoying numpties that expect for one day's shooting and one day's editing, they will get voice-over, spokesperson, complex lighting, multi-cam shoots, background music and of course a fully authored DVD with menu in 5.1.

They expect musicians, instruments and backing tracks, in a recording studio and naturally, a finished and mastered CD for no extra cost. They expect lighting with their PA and think that a web designer can fire off a shopping cart and a database onto their website in minutes!

The largest danger is that they are just not prepared for the service you are providing. Every web designer has come across people with no photographs, no texts, no flow-chart of what they want and no logo for their company. Every recording studio has clients who expect strings for their guitars and skins for their drums and have a drummer who can't keep time. Every maker of corporate videos has come across managers who think that they can present the video, but cannot even remember a five-minute script and keeps says 'um' all the time!

If you give these people one price for a project, they will take advantage of you out of sheer ignorance and inability. They will want re-shoots, re-edits, re-recording of voice-over, simply because they were not prepared the first time. If a re-shoot costs £400, they will think twice about not learning their script and wearing a crumpled suit.

That does not mean that you can't offer a single price for an entire project, but you have to define that project in terms of days and hours. "A five minute corporate video, with titling and editing for just £500!" is to be begging for the customer to want to change the title fonts, have a re-edit and make all sorts of other changes - and all for £500!

 

[MOIC]

A clear and detailed agreement before any money changes hands is what you must provide.

This should include a daily rate ( if that's what you will be quoting ), per day hours and the work you will be doing,

You must also include provisional costs for every extra that may need to be utilised for that specific project.

Estimated costs for aspects within the project are fine, as long as it's clear and realistic.

Ensure you have covered all bases and all costs.

Get a signed agreement to the terms.

 

[Deleted member 252819]

This is something we've been over and over a lot. We're in a different industry (content writing), but clients have told us clearly that they prefer to see published prices. When we trialled it, trade actually fell!

I think what they want is an instant quote for their spec. We use live chat for this, and it gets around the problem quite nicely.

Published prices tend to lead to misconceptions about what's included, with little room for manoeuvre on either side. It can also turn people off immediately if they think they can't afford it, when ordinarily you'd be able to negotiate on price, or sell the service to them on value.

Try it with a few services first, rather than changing your entire business model. Maybe run a few simple services as packages, or run an A/B test if you have the traffic.

 

[Deleted member 244558]

If people are buying on price alone then I will not have them as a customer.

No exceptions.

If someone is going to question a project cost for the time energy and years I've spent gathering knowledge, then they are better off working with someone else.

I talk about this a lot see my latest blog http://guywebb.com/business-advice/this-smells-fishy-to-me.html

If you position yourself correctly you won't have any problems being booked up to the eyeballs with clients...

Fair warning my blog has offensive language from the start and will upset most of you.

 

[Phillip Pilkington]

Very good advise all round, I do photography and I have the same issues. People book me for a full day shoot and sometimes I am working off my feet trying to keep up with the clients expectations. The reality is it should of been a longer shoot, 1.5 days...

 

[Bartholomew Hearn]

I would go for a finished product price, based on length of the final product, time filming and how complex editing is.

 

[Ace Light]

Hello.



The problem here is clients unaware of what goes into providing the product, because it is the result of the service. They just see the product and will compare one product to another, understandably being ignorant of the many factors within the service. I would say that in regards to real-life footage, certain elements can be productized, for example the actual recording part in relation to obtaining testimonial footage, corporate talking head, real estate, etc. You typically know what equipment you need, how many team members, etc. Let them also know what you mean by full-day and half-day, and state as much as possible all the things you think are a given, go on the basis that they know absolutely nothing other than they want a real-life video, beyond that, both parties could be assuming incorrect things about what the other knows.



Furthermore, that level of service you provide, is the result of how many years, how much trial and error, how much education, training, etc, etc. If they think they are just paying for the product, and comparing two guys with vastly different levels of service, experience, excellence, then they need to be informed which is of the greater benefit to them, which of the two can take into account the multitude of factors, which of them can meet the objectives the video is to be used to attain, which of them will provide a smoother experience. They might think you go into their work place, plop the camera and away you go, whereas you know you have to take into account lighting, acoustics, angles, and intangibles to the client such as mood and ambience.



Issues arise in post-production, such as music, motion graphics, editing, etc, etc, where they think certain things are included. I would say give examples of the things you provide, what is included, and typical prices. The more you know what the client wants, the more exact you can be on price, but I would say don’t be too exact in thinking every project is going to go as smooth as possible, hardly ever happens, so best case scenarios that you typically issue a quote for, end up meaning you earn less than you thought you would.



Cheers, Ace.

 

[kathrinalewis]

Keep an eye on your competitors..

 

[MrComputerSaint]

Speaking from purely consumer level I'd like to know the rate without getting in contact. It really annoys me when I'm looking for a service and find the website and they don't give a price.
I've probably already found 5 other sites that do give prices and would go with those instead.

If you don't want to give your prices out (in a tabular form) then a quote tool on your website could be a good option "I need filming for x days and that will take y days for editing". Although I know video editing can be a very time consuming activity so that would need to be defined by you and not the customer. So y = 1.5 multiplied by x for example...
But for a quote tool it'd need a clear message somewhere saying "This time an cost can change depending on client requirements"

 

[MrComputerSaint]

deleted 2nd post. The website said it couldn't post the 1st post, but it did, without my knowledge. Then I posted again.

 

[dwight10]

Hi, I have a small video production business and wanted to share some advise for producing videos to help businesses get more marketing results. If you want to product your service, here is an eBook to check out on Amazon " 25 Business Video Production Lessons "

There are some ideas in here that can help your business with this.
Thanks